Why does my PC try to access my floppy disk drive when there is no diskette in it?

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Why does my PC try to access my floppy disk drive when there is no diskette in it? - If you have a Windows PC, you will sometimes get into a situation where the computer randomly access the floppy disk drive every few minutes -- for no apparent reason! Typically, the harmless annoyance occurs because some program "thinks" it needs to read or write some data to a diskette.

 

In most cases, there may be a document in your recent history folder (Start >> Documents) that was once on a diskette. Here are the steps to clear the document history file Windows uses:

Click Start
Click Settings
Click Taskbar
In the Documents area, click Clear
Click OK

Other causes of the problem:

Microsoft Office's Find Fast utility may be running and trying to index your FDD. Remove it from the Startup group, or in Control Panel, look for Find Fast and disable it from starting. Find Fast installs automatically with Office and can be a resource hog as well!
The System Agent may be running a task; if present, click the System Agent icon in your System Tray for further information.
A virus scanner program may be trying to check the drive. Check the setup of your virus scanning software for further information. A diskette scan at startup or shut down may be normal, but a scan between these times is typically a user-controlled option.

Note: If it is the CD-ROM drive that is being accessed for no reason:

Click Start
Click Settings
Click System
Click Device Manager
Click CD-ROM drive
Click Properties
Uncheck Auto Insert Notification

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